Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
diculty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a xed purpose,
at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very decided manner with
which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving
me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths
he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost
condence on the results which, he said, would ow from teaching me to read.
What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated.
That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great
good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against
my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination
to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my
master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benet of both.
I had resided but a short time in Baltimore before I observed a marked dierence,
in the treatment of slaves, from that which I had witnessed in the country. A city slave
is almost a freeman, compared with a slave on the plantation. He is much better fed
and clothed, and enjoys privileges altogether unknown to the slave on the plantation.
There is a vestige of decency, a sense of shame, that does much to curb and check
those outbreaks of atrocious cruelty so commonly enacted upon the plantation. He
is a desperate slaveholder, who will shock the humanity of his non-slaveholding
neighbors with the cries of his lacerated slave. Few are willing to incur the odium
attaching to the reputation of being a cruel master; and above all things, they would
not be known as not giving a slave enough to eat. Every city slaveholder is anxious to
have it known of him, that he feeds his slaves well; and it is due to them to say, that
most of them do give their slaves enough to eat. There are, however, some painful
exceptions to this rule. Directly opposite to us, on Philpot Street, lived Mr. Thomas
Hamilton. He owned two slaves. Their names were Henrietta and Mary. Henrietta
was about twenty-two years of age, Mary was about fourteen; and of all the mangled
and emaciated creatures I ever looked upon, these two were the most so. His heart
must be harder than stone, that could look upon these unmoved. The head, neck,
and shoulders of Mary were literally cut to pieces. I have frequently felt her head, and
found it nearly covered with festering sores, caused by the lash of her cruel mistress. I
do not know that her master ever whipped her, but I have been an eye-witness to the
cruelty of Mrs. Hamilton. I used to be in Mr. Hamilton’s house nearly every day. Mrs.
Hamilton used to sit in a large chair in the middle of the room, with a heavy cowskin
always by her side, and scarce an hour passed during the day but was marked by the
blood of one of these slaves. The girls seldom passed her without her saying, “Move
faster, you black gip!” at the same time giving them a blow with the cowskin over
the head or shoulders, often drawing the blood. She would then say, “Take that, you
black gip!” continuing, “If you don’t move faster, I’ll move you!” Added to the cruel
lashings to which these slaves were subjected, they were kept nearly half-starved.
They seldom knew what it was to eat a full meal. I have seen Mary contending with
the pigs for the oal thrown into the street. So much was Mary kicked and cut to
pieces, that she was oftener called “pecked” than by her name.
Page | 1278